Posts Tagged 'buddies'

I decided to take part in the Fisher Connections program that was set up over the summer. The purpose of the program is to match up incoming students who might be moving from other parts of the state, country or even world, with students who are already here. These current students can then help with living arrangements, furniture shopping, tips on where to eat and live, etc.

My Fisher Connections buddy is Leanne Tromp, a very cool fellow blogger here. Even though I wasn’t able to help out much with the above-mentioned, I think it still helps to have someone to connect with and I was able to tell Leanne about some of the classes she would be taking this quarter as well as the professors and where to get books and such.

I’m also a member of the GHRA and their buddy program that matches up first years with second years. I was really lucky to get not one, but TWO GHRA buddies, both of whom are very cool.

Laura just moved back from DC, my hometown, and so were able to immediately bond over that. Laura also worked in the hotel industry, which I always thought sounded fun.

I also got matched up with Anja, an international student from China. I had the chance to hang out with Anja at the GHRA mixer and also at the GHRA Buddy Dinner. (See Amber Stephen’s blog post about the event here.) It’s always fun and interesting to meet someone from your own culture and talk about the similarities and differences based on where our families are from and where we grew up. I even got over my shyness of speaking Chinese to native speakers because of their tendency to make fun of my Taiwanese pronunciations and my American accent. Thankfully, Anja kept the fun-poking to a minimum!

Over the course of the next few weeks as the quarter comes to an end, I plan on having lunch with each of them just to catch up and see how their first quarters went. I remember what a whirlwind my first full quarter here was and having a little reinforcement and debriefing would have been a big help to me.